Shreya Sen-Handley | Things can only get wetter, so let’s change?

Across the globe, we’ve had inclement and extreme weather conditions like never before! What used to be once-in-a-lifetime freak temperatures, storms, floods, wildfires, and other destructive natural phenomena, are now regular features.

In Delhi this month, temperatures rose to nearly 50 degrees, reportedly the highest ever in India, while we’ve been deluged in Britain, wading through the wettest 18 months on record. This may seem like opposite experiences but springs from the same source — the unprecedented and dangerous levels of global warming we’ve inflicted upon the earth.

When an anti-Brexit protester outside 10 Downing Street drowned out a thoroughly drenched Rishi Sunak’s election announcement with pop band D:Ream’s anthem, ‘Things can only get better’, and the tabloids crowed that the pictures of the PM looking like a drowned kitten proved that things were getting wetter for him, little did they realise we’re all heading for the same sorry fate.

Not every disaster looming is natural however, as many are turbocharged by technology. AI control of our lives is a dystopian nightmare creeping into reality. The arts, academics and media, have already suffered from its spread, with job losses, plummeting creative and intellectual standards, plagiarism and other crimes, taking hold in its wake.

A resurgent right, rising bigotry, and threat of World War III, are other horrors that are back with a vengeance. Yet, does the re-emergence of past darkness make change cyclical, rather than a harbinger of new beginnings? Can’t we then deploy the lessons of history to combat them? But frankly, have they even registered with most people?

Does it also mean we are, therefore, recycling, and can feel less guilty about our piddling efforts to save the planet? A sad haha, my friends.

Mark Twain is supposed to have quipped that the only person who likes change is a baby with a wet nappy. Change undeniably leaves most of us feeling unsettled, even upended, and scrambling for a foothold on the shifting sands of existence.

It’s also often said that the only certainties in life are divorce, taxes and death, and in a unceasing state of flux is everything else. Are the shifts from coupling to uncoupling, from riches to rags, and life to death, the only trajectories then? Is it really all that bad?

Hey, maybe not. Sure, change rushes in when we’re not ready, and when we want to usher it in, it drags its feet. Like a bull in a china shop, it never knows whether it’s coming or going! But we’ve had positive change come along this month.

The unexpectedly balanced General Election result in India is one such. Any intelligent person, regardless of political bents, would have to admit that rattling the incumbent to ensure he works harder to keep his crown in place (or series of ever-changing elaborate headdresses) is always good for a nation. Testament to how strong Indian democracy remains, India can justifiably pat itself on the back for it. “Electoral democracy is alive (in India). High turnout, competitive polls, and a result that’s unlikely to be disputed attest to the strength of Indian elections — in a region with recent cases of rigged or non-credible elections and, in Taliban-led Afghanistan, where elections don’t happen at all,” I found South Asian expert Michael Kugelman telling the BBC, as I perused every news platform known to man to bathe in its reflected glory. Kudos, kith and kin!

In Britain, a change of government looks inevitable, and whether you think Keir an upgrade or not (screw your blinkers on tightly if you want to unsee the Tory cloth from which he’s cut), the cleaning of the Augean Stables every now and then is invariably healthy.

But across the pond, the weirdly-surprising-even-though-completely-deserved indictment of Trump, finally held accountable for a tiny smattering of his many sins, will change nothing at all. With baying herds of rednecks voting for him nevertheless, he will unashamedly preside over the US from prison — ahh, the wild, wild west.

Loving change, you see, is a cultivated taste. My nomadic childhood occasioned my studying in six schools in total, and I learned to own, even enjoy, my eternally-new-kid-in-class status. I discovered that the constraints of conventions and hidebound expectations weren’t strapped on newbies immediately, providing a window to breathe and grow. I remember wishing for this latitude in adulthood, and my chosen profession of journalist and writer, enabling me to wear different hats on different days, and peripatetic life till recently, has indeed allowed some liberty.

Just as transformations are frequently driven by that quest for freedom, retaining the status quo can be entrenchment and stasis, for people, nations, and the world. Where would we be but for the individuals and groups who’ve pushed past boundaries in history, leading to scientific discoveries, cultural enlightenment and social change? In the Dark Ages.

Yes, change is forever flowing, sometimes too slow and at others, shockingly sudden, and always, always scary. Yet, if things are only going to get more sodden than even hapless Rishi Sunak’s interminable damp squibs (makes me almost sorry for this super-privileged chappie), can’t we learn to roll with it, like surfers riding the waves?

“Now round us spreads the watery plain —

Oh might our marges meet again!”

Matthew Arnold lamented, but I believe they might.